Grand County towns have a shot at winning Reusable Bag Challenge

The latest tallies are in for the Reusable Bag Challenge, and since the contest began on March 1, The Grand BYOB Project – representing Winter Park, Fraser and Granby – has eliminated more than 90,000 plastic bags.

“We did even better than the last tally,” said local organizer Joyce Burford. “There’s one month left to go, and I really want to encourage everyone to get out there and shop with reusable bags, as we have a great chance at winning this challenge.”

The Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) Reusable Bag Challenge is a competition among 31 mountain towns in the West to encourage the use of reusable shopping bags. The Challenge will run until Sept. 1. The prize to the winning town is a $10,000 solar panel installation on a public school. Environmental concern about issues such as litter and degradation of resources is the primary impetus behind the CAST Challenge.

Since the competition began, local participating stores have been responsible for tallying the use of every reusable bag used or purchased by a customer at checkout. The “winner” will be determined by which community uses the most reusable bags on a per-capita basis during the six-month period. Visit http://www.playwinterpark.com for a list of participating retailers.